


where I'm going, will you follow

by Maculategiraffe



Category: The Robe (novel)
Genre: Christianity, M/M, Master/Slave, a character's deeply held religious beliefs within the context of the story, also not in a sexy way, but not like in a roleplay way, i hope this does not come off like an evangelical tract, it takes place in first-century Rome, mention of hitting, or at least Lloyd Douglas' 1940s american idea of very early christianity, or at least my gay 2018 american idea of that, please take with a grain of salt, should not be mistaken for actual apologia, very early christianity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 05:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16549394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maculategiraffe/pseuds/Maculategiraffe
Summary: "Badly shaken and perplexed, Marcellus sat for an hour staring at the wall."Demetrius and Marcellus spend some quality time together.melia244, thank you so much for the prompt and for your generous auction contribution.Also, I just added a brief plot summary of The Robe in the endnote for anybody who wants to read this and isn't the one person who shared my extremely specific childhood obsessions and made this wonderful request :D





	where I'm going, will you follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melia244](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melia244/gifts).



> Could I have pushed this November 15th deadline any more intently? I apologize if, after the year we've all had, you've completely lost interest in this prompt by now. I did very much enjoy writing it, though, and rereading _The Robe._
> 
> (When I was Growing Up Evangelical, this book was in my grandfather's home office, and I 100% blame my obsessive reading of it and of _Quo Vadis?_ for certain slavery Aesthetics that made their way into the Slave Breakers series. Especially the tunics. And the snarky bastard of an adoring slave. Hi, Yves!)
> 
> I've set this scene at a very particular part of the book: it's page 433 in my Kindle copy, where there's a row of asterisks and then a paragraph beginning, "Badly shaken and perplexed, Marcellus sat for an hour staring at the wall." Pretend Demetrius came back to the inn with Marcellus to undress him like a good slave-valet before bunking with Stephanos.
> 
> I tried to make it 100% canon-compatible, in that I think you can insert this scene in that place and have everything else in the book still happen exactly as written. Not that I'd object to a fix-it AU where Marcellus and Demetrius ran away together and lived happily ever after, but this isn't that one.
> 
> (I also want to add a disclaimer about a certain statement Demetrius makes here, about the time Marcellus slapped him in the face: I want to make it clear that I do not personally consider it a failing in love or in piety to refuse to forgive someone else for slapping you in the face, even once.)
> 
> Also, I know this is a cheesy song, but I love it, and it's got classical-Greek Christian lyrics: ["Kyrie"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NDjt4FzFWY)

Being a Christian wasn't easy, but then, Demetrius had never exactly expected it to be.

Really, he'd never expected _anything_ to be easy. Not manhood, not slavery, not duty or honor or goodness, or the long, wearying business of life itself, which encompassed all of the above. Life wasn't a thing to be lived by the weak, or the cowardly. It was a thing one met with shoulders squared, training to keep oneself in strength and in discipline, learning as much as one could, bearing the pain and sorrow and shame that were the ordinary lot of man-- and, especially, of a man who had the misfortune to be a slave-- with courage and grace.

There were only a few things in his life-- a life of steadfast, careful, rectitudinous putting of one foot before the other-- towards which he'd rushed, instead, with a headlong and stumbling eagerness, an inner, wordless cry. _Yes,_ or _please_ , or _oh, oh, my, my--_

 _My mother._ Her skirts, when he was a child, and hurt, and sure of her welcome and her comfort, her tender hands lifting him up into sweet clean-scented softness, her low, lovely voice speaking words of nonsensical endearment, of love.

The deep, clear, clean-tiled bathing pool at the home of his new owners, when he'd presented himself-- resigned to servitude, and to whatever honor and probity a slave could achieve, and filthy from head to toe with the dirt and blood of his awful journey-- and then seen the glimmer of the pool, and run, _run_ , for what might be the last time, towards the blissful plunge, the coolness all over, the sunlight bending through the surface above and the dappled surface below, the weightlessness of water.

And then the fight that could have cost him his life, had his master loved him less: the glorious, righteous rage into which he'd let himself tumble, weightless with fury and the joy of using his fists again, to punish the reeking, leering creature who represented everything wrong with the world, doing to him everything he deserved, hurting him without any more restraint than it took to keep him conscious long enough to _keep hurting him--_

And then, and then, the water of baptism, neither as bright nor as clear nor as cold as the frigidarium of his wealthy Roman masters, but he'd plunged into it with as good a will, as deep a longing, and in a confusion of hope and fear and submission deeper than any he'd ever truly felt as a slave. _Yes, make me clean, lift me up-- please, Sir--my Lord--_

A man who wasn't a better man this year than last year, this month than last month, this day than yesterday, ought to be ashamed of himself. That had been the worst thing about his first fight, after rising from his baptism, his hair still-- as he'd confessed to Marcellus-- damp with the water of his ritual purification. The shame, afterwards, that he'd been washed clean for a glorious hour-- worthy to stand before the gentle Galilean, unsoiled with the sins and mistakes of his life-- and then he'd spoiled it all, with his accursed temper.

But that was a foolish way to look at things. Had his mother loved him less, when he'd muddied himself in the garden with playing, fallen into the dust and bloodied his knees and knuckles with his childish clumsiness? She'd lifted him against her own clean clothes, not caring how he spoiled them. She'd washed him clean every day, and never minded.

Still, Demetrius wanted to be good. He'd always _meant_ to be good, _intended_ it, how else was a man to live; but now he _wanted_ it, the way he'd wanted to be baptized, the way he'd wanted to beat Quintus' face to unrecognizability and hear him squeal with pain for the insult he'd offered Lucia, the way he'd wanted to dive deep into that clean, clean water, the way he'd wanted-- _did_ want, still, God help him-- his mother.

Marcellus sat on the edge of the narrow bed of the inn, already undressed for sleep, with his head bowed, shoulders bent, almost folded double, as if under the weight of a burden too heavy to be borne. Demetrius stood respectfully a few paces away, still clad, watching.

"I don't know what to do," Marcellus murmured.

Demetrius answered him not in Latin, the language of his servitude, but in Aramaic, the language they had learned together: "Look up at me."

Marcellus obeyed, quickly, perhaps in surprise at the language Demetrius had used, perhaps at the command, from one who had always been so deferential and conscious of his place. His dark eyelashes were starred with tears. Demetrius wanted to wipe them away with his fingertips. 

He said, still in Aramaic, "Tell me. Let me help."

Marcellus answered, in the same tongue, "Demetrius-- you have borne too many of my burdens already."

"The Galilean told his disciples," Demetrius parried-- it was much easier to argue like this in Aramaic-- "to help bear another man's burden twice as long as one must. In which case, I owe you my strength well into another life, my--" He caught himself, hardly stumbled-- "master."

Marcellus stared up at him, gazed and gazed, and Demetrius -- so long all but invisible, the good slave-- fought the well-trained urge to lower his gaze. He wanted to look at Marcellus: the fine patrician features of his still-boyish face, the faint trembling of his mouth, the light caught in the tears that pooled in his eyes. He wanted Marcellus to see him in turn.

"How can you say that?" Marcellus asked finally, in Latin, and then switched back to halting Aramaic. "Since my-- since the day I became seventeen, all these years, you have looked after me. Borne the burden of me. Of your slavery, when, the Lord knows, you are-- ten times of my worth. Ten times of the man--" He swallowed hard. "If it had been you-- that day-- in charge-- the man might never have died."

"Then he would not have risen," Demetrius said gently.

Marcellus blinked, and tears striped his cheeks.

"Demetrius," he said. "You-- worship him-- you believe he is the Messiah, the Lord-- and his blood is on my hands, on my head-- I am sick with it-- why don't you strike me down, why don't you take revenge--"

"Oh, μὴ γένοιτο, ἀγαπητέ μου," Demetrius protested, realizing only when Marcellus blinked up at him in shock and bewilderment that in his dismay he'd spoken in Greek, the language of his heart. 

He stepped forward--

\--and why shouldn't he touch Marcellus, whom he'd touched-- massaged, bathed, dressed, undressed, helped to rise or to dismount, wrapped a supporting or restraining arm around-- so many times. More times than any of them could have thought to count, over the years.

He laid his hand on Marcellus' back, stepping closer at the same moment, so that his hip nearly touched Marcellus' shoulder. 

Marcellus sat very still, gazing up at him.

"Master," Demetrius said quietly, in Latin now, "do you remember the night of his death, the night you were drinking, when you ordered me to hand over the robe?"

Marcellus nodded, swallowed hard, looking now like a guilty child. A brave one, ready to admit his misdeeds, and be punished.

"Do you remember what you did when I tried to refuse?"

Marcellus nodded again, biting his lips, the tears standing in his eyes again.

"The Lord commands us to forgive," Demetrius said. "It is not one of the commandments I have been finding it easy to follow. I have an excellent memory for slights, for insults and injuries. Not that I have suffered as many as most slaves-- but even the most fortunate of slaves must suffer a great deal that he lacks the power to avenge or punish. I have been praying for the power to let go-- if not of the memory of my wrongs, for that seems indelible, then at least of my anger. To forgive."

He felt, in the palm that still rested on Marcellus' shoulder, the naked man begin to tremble. He knew, in that moment, that if he struck his master now, full in the face with all his strength, Marcellus would suffer it as silently and humbly as Demetrius himself had, on the night of which they were speaking.

"But not you," he said softly, letting his palm and fingers caress Marcellus' naked back. "Not that. That blow, I forgave before I knew I was angry. While my cheek was still burning from your palm. I saw your face, and I forgave. As easily as falling."

Marcellus gazed up at him, whispered, "Why?"

"Because I know you," Demetrius said, "and I love you well. And as I love you, so the Lord Jesus loves you, and me too, and all his people, and forgives us the wrong we do, for that love's sake. Yes, I am here-- let the tears come-- they clear your eyes and your head as the rain clears the sky when it falls, so said my mother when I was small. Lean your head here, αγαπημένε, as if my tunic were his robe, and don't be ashamed to weep, not before your Demetrius..."

Marcellus' hands came up, like a drowning man's, to clutch at Demetrius' tunic, his fists clenching in the cloth, his shoulders heaving under Demetrius' own hands, and he buried his face against Demetrius' belly, and sobbed like a punished child. 

Demetrius murmured to him in Greek, not knowing how much Marcellus-- whose Greek was that of a reasonably well educated Roman tribune, stilted and formal-- would understand, but wanting his voice to stay steady, soothe Marcellus through the storm of his grief and shame. _There, there, my brave, good boy. My dear, my dear. Yes, here, you are here with me. Don't be afraid. All will be well. Be at peace, here with me._

When Marcellus' weeping had finally spent itself, he lifted his head to look up at Demetrius, parted his flushed lips as if to speak, but Demetrius leaned down-- a plunge as into water, a fall through space and possibility, into bliss-- and kissed the tearstained face. 

Kissed the shadows beneath Marcellus' eyes, the hot, tender skin there, tasting the salt water of his tears. Kissed the drops from his eyelashes. Kissed the shelves of his cheekbones, and the arch of his patrician nose, and then the heated, quivering mouth itself, and Marcellus kissed him back, making a shattered small sound, muffled, into his mouth.

When Demetrius' lips moved on to the hard line of Marcellus' jaw, he heard his master cry out again, softly. When he pushed Marcellus' yielding body backwards onto the bed, he heard no cry, only labored breathing, as he moved forward till he lay over his master (weightless, dazzled: oh, water, oh, my Lord, oh, my darling) and kissed him till he thought they would both drown.

When they broke apart to breathe, Marcellus gasped, choked, whispered, "Demetrius-- please--"

"What?" Demetrius reached up, smoothed the silky hair from the damp, flushed forehead. "What do you have to ask of me, αγαπημένε?"

"Agapemene--" Marcellus echoed, stumbling over the word. "Beloved?"

"You are not so hopelessly ignorant of Greek as I had always thought," Demetrius grinned, and Marcellus flushed more deeply still. "Yes, 'beloved.' And my name is Δημήτριος, not 'Demetrius.'" He deliberately exaggerated his master's Roman accent on his name. "Say it-- "Δημήτριος, please,' what? What must I do, to please my master? Am I dismissed? Shall I go?"

"De _met_ rios--" Marcellus tried, and Demetrius, who'd been laughing, nearly wept at the care with which Marcellus attempted to imitate the vowel-shifts and accents of his Greek name. Marcellus wasn't laughing. "Don't-- don't tease-- I'm serious. Is this-- I don't want to-- to do wrong--"

"Nor do I want you to do wrong, dearest," Demetrius answered, sobered by Marcellus' apparent distress. "Is this wrong?"

"You're a s-slave," said Marcellus, his voice cracking on the word, making it sound less harsh. "I've never-- I am not a man to-- take advantage--"

Demetrius stroked his hair, kissed the corner of his eye again, tasting the salt traces of his tears.

"You are not," he agreed. "In all the years I've belonged to you, to do with as you will, you have never once touched me lewdly. And only once in anger. Do you think I fear you, master? That I lie over you now, trembling lest you take me by force, or have me flogged, or sold in the agora, for pennies, to the first brute who likes the look of me?"

"I know--" Marcellus swallowed again. "I hope-- you have no reason to fear me."

Demetrius kissed his lips again, thirstily, joyfully, thoroughly, and then took Marcellus' wrists in his hands, and pulled them-- not roughly, he had no desire to hurt, very gently, but very firmly-- to pin them above his head.

Marcellus whimpered, but did not struggle.

"A countryman of mine," Demetrius said, looking down on him with avarice, "a philosopher, so the story is told, when he was sold into slavery, and instructed to list his skills and talents in order to set an appropriate price, cited his ability 'to rule men.'" He smiled down into Marcellus' face, his parted lips, his wide eyes. "And pointed at a potential buyer, saying, 'This man needs a master.'"

"You--" Marcellus licked his lips. "You have-- since my seventeenth birthday-- you have certainly ruled me."

"Not as I mean to do, tonight," said Demetrius, and leaned down, to kiss the wetted lips, and then, for some time, there were no more words.

..............................................................

It was later, when they lay clasped in one another's arms, when Marcellus' head had been resting on Demetrius' chest, his breath warm and steady on his slave's neck, for so long that Demetrius had thought he had fallen asleep, that Marcellus said, "What now?"

Demetrius kissed his forehead, his temple, his ear.

"Whatever you want, now," he said. "I am yours. And you must do as you think right, always."

Marcellus was quiet for some time, and then he said, "I want to meet your-- your Fisherman. Simon, Peter, what you may call him. I want to speak to him of-- of his master. The Galilean."

"Very well." Demetrius was breathing in, with every breath, the scent of Marcellus' skin. It had always been pleasant; now it was delectable. "I'll speak to the others-- the Christians. I'll arrange for you to meet him. You'll be impressed with him, sir. Everyone is. And he'll-- well, of course, he'll be pleased, to have a man like you on our side."

"You mean--" Marcellus frowned. "You mean, a Roman. Of high rank. A Tribune. With power-- and influence."

"I mean no such thing." Demetrius shifted, looked down at Marcellus. "If we concerned ourselves with rank, and status, and wealth-- with that sort of power-- we would be an altogether different sort of people."

"It's so odd," said Marcellus, lying very still, gazing up at Demetrius, with what seemed to be perfect peace on his face. "To hear you speak of them as _your people._ As _us._ You truly have become one of them. You _believe._ "

"I--" Demetrius hesitated a moment before speaking the words, to postpone and sharpen the relief and fulfillment of them. "I believe. Yes. I believe. I am one of them. I belong to him."

"But you said you were mine," Marcellus said, half petulant, all needful, but very still. As if he dared not reach for Demetrius, clutch at what he claimed.

Demetrius kissed him again, on the mouth this time, soft and sweet.

"That, too," he said. "As you are mine. As, I hope, you will learn to be his, too."

"And--"

"Yes?" said Demetrius, when Marcellus had been silent long enough that it seemed he didn't plan to finish his sentence.

"Will you stay with me?" Marcellus asked. "Will you-- will we be together?"

Demetrius' heart wrenched with a longing that was pain, and pleasure too, joy in having found something so dearly worth desiring that its loss would hurt more deeply than never having had it in the first place. _My love, my dear, Marcellus. You who are nobly born, gently reared; you who have been offered the gratification of your every desire as your birthright. How can I make you understand?_

"I cannot promise you that we will never be parted," he said finally. "Not in this world. Not in this life. Life is an altogether more uncertain affair than that. Even for you-- you are at the mercy of the Caesars, of their legates, of their whims and whimsies. For your wealth, for your power, for your very life. Even God's son was at the mercy of crowds. 

"But I can promise you this," he continued, and Marcellus watched him, intent as if his life hung in the balance of Demetrius' next words. "While you love me-- and you do love me, don't you, master--?"

"I love you," said Marcellus solemnly. "I've always loved you, I think."

Demetrius smiled. "Then always love me. As I am now. As I have been to you, and as I mean to be. And you will never lose me, αγαπημένε. And I can never lose you. We will be part of the same thing, the same meaning in the world. Can you be content with that?"

"No," said Marcellus, after a long moment. "I don't think so. But if it's all I may have of you, then I'll do it gladly."

"My brave master." Demetrius kissed the sweat-cooled forehead. "So will I. No matter what becomes of us, we'll love one another, and love what makes each of us most ourselves. And you'll hear what the Fisherman has to say, and listen, and learn. And let yourself be forgiven, ἀγαπητέ μου. For me. Will you?"

"Yes," said Marcellus. "Yes, I will. For you."

"Good." Demetrius sighed. "I must not fall asleep here, sir. Stephanos will wonder where I am-- and I must rise early, to go to the Ecclesia and speak to the Fisherman. And you, you must rest. Try to sleep. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?"

"I hope it brings you back to me," said Marcellus softly.

Demetrius smiled, stretched, groaned a little, and began the difficult business of rising.

**Author's Note:**

> OK so The Robe is a novel-length Bible fanfic written in 1942 to the prompt "hey remember in the Bible when it talks about how at Jesus' crucifixion, the Roman soldiers sat nearby and gambled for his clothing? What do you think happened to the clothing? Do you think the Roman who won it felt, like, weirded out afterwards? Do you think maybe he eventually became a Christian? How cool would that be"
> 
> Marcellus is the young Roman soldier who oversaw the crucifixion, and he won Jesus' robe, a nice homespun thing. Demetrius is his Greek slave, two years older, who's snarky and fighty and also very very polite and rectitudinous, who grabbed the robe for Marcellus after Marcellus got super drunk because he was really weirded out by the whole crucifixion situation. They both become extremely interested in Jesus after the fact, partly because touching the robe gives them Feels (it's implied that some kind of mystical energy clings to it, which Demetrius finds incredibly comforting and specifically compares to the feeling of running to his mother's arms for consolation when he was small and being unconditionally embraced, and which Marcellus initially finds really upsetting because, um, he had the dude killed) and partly because from everything they can learn he just seems like he was a really cool dude. They start learning all they can about him and his followers, and start learning Aramaic to talk to more followers, and eventually fall in with the early Church and become Christians. Demetrius gets converted and baptized first; Marcellus hesitates, but eventually gets there. There's all kinds of other adventures and shenanigans, but I think that's basically what you need to know to read this!


End file.
